Tools, Dials & unexpected Levers

CEO

When you head a business, you have many modes. Being cautious, aggressive, fast or thrifty – it could be artificial and funny to list them.

For example we could study the “Fast & Small Unit” mode. Imagine there’s a snow storm in Marseilles, South of France. It never happens, so the whole city is disorganized. A guy working in a garage takes a huge truck, buys hundreds of snow-tires kits, parks it at one entrance of the city with a billboard, and makes a fortune in one day.

Today I study the “Grab the most you can, haphazardly” mode.

Imagine you own a toy store. As it’s trendy, you decide to sell LPs, vinyls, big quantities, big money. Yeyyy!

On the whole, you have two ways :

Build an annex, hire three or four music fans to buy, organize, present and sell your vinyls and make big money, becoming the great place to be to buy records.

Build nothing, hire nobody, order tons of random vinyls, put them in heaps in corners or in the middle of toys, command your toys specialists to take care of all of it, and grab the most money you can, haphazardly.

It’s funny to watch the consequences of 2 :

Your team will be exhausted.

Stressed by questions they don’t have the answer to (they know how to sell toys, but they are not record dealers).

Your assortment is wrong (“someone” bought the LPs for you and doesn’t know who your customers are and need).

Your clientele will be furious (it’s badly organized and the employees know nothing).

Your toys turnover will be dipped in many ways (your store is in chaos, you lack place of toys, your employees are in burn out and don’t have time to do their work properly, etc).

But well : you’ll sell vinyls now, right?

You see what you win, but you don’t realized (or don’t want to) what you lose. What are the consequences? How is it inelegant/uncouth? Looter or capitalist scavenger? Why this fear of doing things properly? How to act within this Universe? Who shall wash the dishes?

The N-1 bullshite is one of most simple bullshite poo of the business world.

“Last year you made 100 – this year you make 90 : you have obviously a problem, come to my office”

But :

Contingency : Maybe last year you got an unexpected big order from another company, and without this order you would have made 60, therefore you’re doing great today, but it’s hidden in numbers

Market’s vagary : Maybe the “hit” you got last year is postponed this year for the month after, therefore you’ll hit the roof in a month

Thus, prepare to have a “problem” next year, because of the N-1 bullshite

Non significant : Maybe the “analyzed” field is too little : for example you sold 4 staplers in August 1976 and 3 in August 1977 so you’re at -25% – maybe you’ll sell 5 in a year and you’ll be great (and you become an “erratic employee”)

Events : “Your stock is too high this year (+35%!)” but there’s a reason your manager ignore (there’s a big event in two weeks and you’ll sell every single piece)

Not mastering the whole world : Maybe you’re at +135% but there was a shortage last year and it did not depend on you

Purpose : You have a shitty manager, so you make everything possible to get him bad number-indicators… but do a great job out of numbers.

Lazy colleagues : you’re alone mixed up with a team.

Reality hidden by numbers : a lazy guy on a trendy field has good N/N-1 with a lousy attitude which spoils the company’s reputation (get +35% but could have made +60% with a better work), and a great team on a transitioning market gets lukewarm N/N-1 but does a great job for the company, and prepares a bright future for business.

Do you have any ideas I could add to this list?

THREE

Numbers are an illusion. They “show” a simple reality, most of the time completely out of the real world, which is moving, multiplugged, complex, and human. Numbers and percentages hide things. They lower your comprehension of what happens.

Talking to people is better. Being smart too. Let % flow around idiots. Have fun.